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Australian Journal of Psychology
Vol. 27, No. I. 1975. pp. 61-83
AN INTEGRATIVE PROGRESS REPORT ON
INFORMATIONAL CONTROL IN HUMANS: SOME
LABORATORY FINDINGS AND METHODOLOGICAL
CLAIMS
JOHN J. FUREDY'
University of Toronto
When noxious unavoidable events (e.g., shocks) are signalled (e.g., by a 5 -sec.
tone), it is widely believed that there is informational control (1C) in the sense
that signalling reduces perceived event noxiousness; the IC mechanism arises
through signal-elicited preparatory anticipatory responses which reduce event
noxiousness; there is a preference for signalled over unsignalled events (preference
for signalling). Since these beliefs, though related, are different, the relevant
evidence from the Toronto laboratory is presented separately for each belief. That
evidence, comprising studies published from 1970-1974 and some additional unpublished experiments, indicates: (a) no support for an IC mechanism in the
elcctrodermal, plethysmographic, and cardiac response systems; ( b ) no support
for IC itself with shocks and loud noises as noxious events; (c) no general prefer-encefor-signalling (PFS) phenomenon (assertion based on total of over 570 5s); but (d)
a recent but consistently emerging specific PFS which appears based on 5s' (false)
beliefs in the benefits of signalling. There follow some methodological claims
which partially integrate the Toronto studies with apparently conflicting evidence
from other laboratories. Complete integration involving a statement of the
conditions under which signalling has beneficial, detrimental and no effects is not
yet possible because of the empirical complexity of the problem, a complexity which
requires an investigative rather than a demonstrational experimental approach. To
illustrate the apparent strength of the latter approach, some examples are giver, of
the current strong but unjustifiable Zeitgeist in favour of such beliefs as the
generality of the PFS phenomenon in humans.
' Most of the material of this article
(written while on sabbatical leave at the
University of Sydney) was presented at a
working conference supported by Canada
Council and the Department of Psychology, University of Toronto held at
the University of Toronto, September,
1973 with P. Badia, D. E. Berlyne, G. B.
Biederman, H. Murray, C. C. Perkins, Jr,
M. E. P. Seligman, M. D. Suboski as the
other participants to whom I am indebted
lor comments on that conference version
which was prepared with the aid of C. X.
Poulos. The evidence and ideas presented
both in the conference version and in the
present paper were developed in collaboration with the following colleagues and
----------------------------------------------Manuscript received 27 February 1974.
Address for reprint requests:
John J. Furedy,
Department of Psychology,
University of Toronto,
Toronto 181, Ontario, Canada
students at the University of Toronto: G.
B. Biederman, C. D. Creelman, A. N.
Doob, M. Katie, F. Klajner, S. Ginsberg,
and C. X. Poulos. The empirical work
reported in this paper was supported during the period of 1968-1973 by grants
from Canada Council and from the
National Research Council of Canada.
For critical advice (of which only some
was accepted) on an earlier draft of the
present article I am especially indebted
to R. A. Champion with whom I have
profitably been agreeing to disagree for
more than a dozen years. For stylistic
improvements in the writeup of the present
version, I owe much to the advice of
two anonymous referees and of C. P.
Furedy. Finally, the investigative approach
which I have tried to take and stress
throughout the paper was indirectly, but
powerfully, influenced by the realist-empiricist philosophy of science taught at the
University of Sydney by the l a t e John
Anderson and his students.
61
62
John J. Furedy
What happens when the human
organism receives a signal about a
noxious event which, however, is
physically unmodifiable? The concern of this paper will be to examine
arrangements in which shocks or
loud noises are signalled by weak
tones or lights of about -5 to 10 sec.
in duration, and to compare these
arrangements with those where the
same events are not so signalled.
Related but different questions which
involve comparing delayed with immediate shocks (e.g., Maltzman &
Wolff, 1970), or even more closely
related questions such as those involving regularly presented, but not
explicitly signalled, shocks (e.g.,
Lovibond, 1968) will not be taken
up here. These questions are excluded not because of irrelevance,
but rather because they complicate
a picture which is already sufficiently
complex. Moreover, since the animal
literature on the question of signalling has specific and complex problems of its own (cf., e.g., Biederman
& Furedy, 1973), this paper will be
confined to data gathered only from
humans.
These restrictions do not imply
that the problem of concern is
viewed as an esoteric one devoid of
any practical significance, or as a
purely empirical question which is
unrelated to theories of behaviour.
On the contrary, the psychological
effects of signalling on physically unmodifiable noxious events are quite
important in various areas of medicine and dentistry. However, that
importance lies not so much in how
we can "come up" with signalling
methods that will reduce perceived
noxiousness or pain (which is to put
the question in a way that at least
partly begs it), but in determining
the conditions under which signal-
ling intensifies, reduces, or has no
effect on pain. Again, from a
theoretical point of view, signalling
effects are not only relevant to, but
are predictable by, various more
general theories of behaviour. Most
current theories (e.g., Berlyne, 1960;
Lykken, 1962, Perkins, 1968; Seligman, 1968) predict that signalling
has beneficial or alleviating effects
on pain. However, the situation becomes complex once it is recognised
that it is easy to deduce conclusions
of the opposite nature from other
theories which take the motivating
effects of conditioned fear into
account (Hull, 1943; cf. Furedy &
Doob, 1971a, p. 263). This complexity, indeed, can also be recognised by listening to subjects' reasons
for preferring the signalled and
unsignalled situations, respectively.
These reasons are actually formulations of the two basically opposing
theoretical viewpoints in man-in-thestreet terminology, i.e., "the shock
hurts less when signalled because I
can prepare myself for it", vs. "the
shock hurts more when signalled because I tense up". Accordingly, as
in the case of applications, so in the
case of basic theoretical research:
what should be sought from experiments are not demonstrations of the
beneficial effects of signalling but
specification of the conditions under
which the effects of signalling are
beneficial, null, and detrimental.
In support of preferring an investigative over a demonstrational
approach to the problem, this paper
will first present evidence on the
effects of signalling that has emerged
from the Toronto laboratory from
1969-1973. Much of this evidence
contradicts the current view that
these effects are beneficial and that
signalling is preferred. Where this
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
evidence has been published in detail elsewhere, the presentation will
be very brief, while a small proportion of data which are not currently
available for critical scrutiny in published form will be presented in more
detail. The second purpose of this
paper is to put forward certain
methodological claims which have
arisen in the course of attempting to
reconcile the Toronto results with
those reported in the literature from
other laboratories. Finally, based on
these considerations and on the available theories, an integration will be
suggested which, however, will be of
a limited nature for reasons to be
made clear later.
EVIDENCE FROM THE
TORONTO LABORATORY
Central to most current beliefs
and theories concerned with the
effects of signalling is the notion that
has been called the phenomenon of
"informational cognitive control", or,
more precisely, "informational control" (IC). 2 The IC phenomenon
may be defined as occurring whenever merely signalling a noxious and
physically unmodifiable event reduces
the perceived noxiousness of that
event (Furedy & Doob, 1972). The
first set of evidence presented is that
concerned with a mechanism whereby IC might operate: the signalelicited preparatory (adaptive) response as conceived by Perkins
(1968). The evidence gathered from
the Toronto laboratory concerning
the IC phenomenon itself will then
be considered with the understanding
- As noted most forcefully by D. E.
Berlyne during the conference presentation of this material, the use of the
term "cognitive" is inadvisable in this
context, because it presupposes a particular
sort (i.e.. cognitive) of mechanism for
the informational control phenomenon.
63
that, as detailed elsewhere (e.g.,
Furedy & Doob, 1971a, p. 258),
the issues of mechanism and phenomenon, though related, are readily
distinguishable. Finally, the evidence
relevant to the preference-for-signalling (PFS) phenomenon will be considered. The PFS phenomenon is
exemplified by subjects preferring
signalled over unsignalled inescapable, unavoidable shocks of the same
intensity. There are obvious relationships between the IC mechanism, IC
phenomenon, and PFS phenomenon,
but, as detailed elsewhere (Furedy
& Doob. 1971a, pp. 258-259), these
notions cannot be run together.
The IC Mechanism
When Perkins ( 1 9 6 8 ) published
a paper which still remains as the
most explicit and testable version of
how an IC mechanism might operate,
he used the galvanic skin response
(GSR) as a specific example of
adaptive preparation (Perkins, 1968,
p. 163). Consistent with Perkins'
notions, later psychophysiological
reviews concerned with the GSR
have referred to its role in serving
"the adaptive notion of allowing the
organism to prevent signalled injury
to the skin" (Dengerink & Taylor,
1971, p. 358). However, this role
requires a negative relationship to
hold between conditioned GSR and
UCS aversiveness ratings (for derivation of this "regression" hypothesis, cf., e.g., Furedy, 1970, p. 301).
a relationship which failed to emerge
in a number of studies (Furedy,
1970, 1973; Furedy & Doob, 1971a:
Furedy, Katie, Klajner & Poulos,
1973). Moreover, this search for an
electrodermal form of the IC
mechanism has not been just a
matter of simple replications of the
same study. For example, because
64
John J. Furedy
UCS intensity was varied within 5s
in Furedy (1970), a feature which
could have obscured the operation of
the electrodermal IC mechanism,
Furedy & Doob (1971a) kept UCS
intensity constant within 5s. Again,
because of the possibility (to be
discussed in the methodological
claims section in more detail) of an
"attentional" confounding as raised
by Obrist, Webb and Sutterer (1969)
in studies using the rated-aversiveness methodology, Furedy et al.
(1973) manipulated these "attentional" factors, but still failed to find
evidence for an electrodermal IC
preparatory-response mechanism under any of the conditions. Finally,
because of suggestions (e.g., Dengerink & Taylor, 1971, p. 358) that the
clearest electrodermal preparatory
response would be discovered only if
GSRs occurring before the UCS were
separated into those occurring closer
to CS onset and those occurring
later in the interval (closer to UCS
onset), Furedy (1973) extended the
CS-UCS interval from 5 to 8 sec.
to facilitate separate observation of
these later-occurring GSRs. However, as before, no evidence for
any electrodermal IC preparatoryresponse mechanism was found.
Another potential autonomic preparatory response is the vasomotor
plethysmographic digital volumepulse change (VPC), but in studies
where the CS-UCS interval was long
enough (8 sec.) to permit adequate
observation of this anticipatory vasomotor CR, no evidence for any IC
preparatory-response mechanism was
obtained (Furedy & Doob, 1971b:
Furedy, 1973). Both the electroderma! and plethysmographic response systems, however, are relatively peripheral in nature, and, if
one were to search for the most
likely system in which to find an
instance of the IC mechanism, the
more pervasive and organismically
important cardiac response system
could be a more appropriate place
to look. More recently Ginsberg and
Furedy looked for evidence for such
a cardiac IC preparatory-response
mechanism in the data from 30 5s
whose heart rates were continuously
recorded during a signalled loudnoise experiment, the conditions for
which have been reported elsewhere
(Furedy, Fainstat, Kulin, Lasko &
Nichols, 1972). Very briefly, the
study was a conditioning experiment
with a delayed CS-UCS interval of 8
sec, -3-sec. loud white noise (varied
from 80-120 dB within 5s) as the
UCS, with both signalled (CS-UCS)
and unsignalled (UCS alone) trials
being delivered to all 5s. In such an
extended CS-UCS interval conditioning arrangement, a heart-rate deceleration is typically observed prior to
UCS onset and, in the case of a
noxious UCS, it has been suggested
that this deceleratory component of
the heart-rate response serves to
attenuate the aversiveness of the
UCS (Obrist, Webb & Sutterer,
1969). Preparatory-response notions
would seem to require that in this
cardiac IC preparatory-response, deceleration magnitude prior to UCS
onset be negatively related to the
rated intensity of the immediately
following UCS. For defining this deceleration on a given trial, the score
was zero if the heart was not decelerating immediately before UCS
onset (UCSO); if there was deceleration during this period, then we
worked back from UCSO beat by
beat to the point where the deceleration began, i.e. response onset
(RO); deceleration magnitude was
then expressed as a percentage of the
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
algebraic difference in rates measured
at RO and UCSO divided by the rate
at RO. However, the predicted negative relationship between magnitude
of cardiac deceleration immediately
before the UCS onset and rated intensity failed to emerge, since the
number of obtained negative regression coefficients (15) equalled
the number of positive coefficients,
and the mean of the coefficients did
not differ significantly from zero,
f = -08.
In summary, then, the Toronto
laboratory has examined a number
of potential preparatory responses
ranging from peripheral responses
like the GSR to a more central response like cardiac deceleration. Also
the search for evidence that would
confirm the operation of an IC
mechanism has ranged over a number of possibly relevant variables
(e.g. variable vs. constant UCS intensity within 5s), although, quite
obviously, the range of variables has
by no means been exhausted. Nevertheless, it bears emphasis that in
none of these studies was there any
support for the notion of an IC
preparatory-response mechanism. 3
On the other hand, the lack of
support for this preparatory-response
type of IC mechanism is not inconsistent with the existence of the TC
phenomenon.
The IC Phenomenon
The evidence regarding IC that
emerged between 1968 to 1971 has
been summarised previously (Furedy
& Doob, 1972) to indicate that a
variety of conditions which employed
shock as the noxious unavoidable
event presented to over 150 5s failed
to reveal any significant tendency
for signalled shocks to be rated as
less aversive than unsignalled shocks.
65
Indeed, in one reported experiment
(Furedy & Doob, 1972, Exp. Ill),
there was a slight but significant
tendency in the opposite direction,
with signalled shock being rated as
more unpleasant than unsignalled
shock. Also, the same tendency
which did not reach significance in
the 16 5s of Experiment He as
reported by Furedy & Doob (1972)
did reach the -01 level of significance
when all 32 5s were run (cf. Furedy
& Doob, 1971a, Exp. Ill), with signalled shocks being rated as more
intense than unsignalled shocks. In
addition, in a later series of experiments (Furedy et al., 1973), data
was obtained from 120 5s to indicate that, again, signalling did not
reduce the rated intensity of shocks.
However, while based on many
3 As noted by R. A. Champion, this
is not to say that the possibilities for
verifying the presence of an IC preparatoryresponse mechanism even in the
electrodermal GSR system have been
exhausted. One possibility which we have
not investigated is that with shock durations which exceed the latency of the fullydeveloped GSR. there, may be a negative
correlation between the GSR elicited by
shock onset and the rated aversiveness of
the shock, and, more particularly, the rated
aversiveness of that part of the shock
which occurs after the onset itself. Another
possible source of verification is the
electrodermal resistance level at the point
of shock onset in a signal-shock situation,
where these levels should be positively
correlated with the rated aversiveness of
the shock if lower skin resistance does,
indeed, lessen the perceived noxiousness
of the shock. We are currently starting to
investigate these possibilities, but it bears
emphasis that even if the results do
agree completely with the preparatoryresponse mechanism predictions, it is
nevertheless the case that the body of data
reviewed in the text of this paper are
uniformly disconfirmatory, and. to that
extent, the empirical status of the
preparatory-response
notion
in
the
autonomic response systems examined remains at present in serious doubt.
66
John J. Furedy
Ss, these studies did not exhaust
either all the potentially relevant
independent variables, nor even all
the important dependent variables.
To take an example of the former,
although the previous Toronto
studies had explored signal-shock
intervals of 5 as well as 8 sec, to
workers like Suboski and his associates, both those intervals would
have seemed to be far too long for
producing an IC effect, on the
grounds that it was only at intervals
approximating -5 sec. that conditioning (of the eyelid preparatory response) is optimal (Suboski, Brace,
Jarrold, Teller & Dieter, 1972).
However, in two more recently reported studies (Furedy & Klajner,
1972a: Furedy & Ginsberg, 1973)
based on two sets of 48 5s, the
signal-shock interval was -5 sec, and
no difference was obtained between
the rated intensity of signalled and
unsignalled shocks. Nor, to take an
example of a different dependent
variable, did autonomic indices of
aversiveness yield a difference between signalled and unsignalled
shocks in these studies, although
various forms of these indices
(Furedy & Klajner. 1972a; Furedy,
1972; Furedy & Ginsberg. 1973)
were validated in the sense of being
demonstrably sensitive to shock intensity differences.
On the other hand, the experiments with Klajner and Ginsberg
were quite complex in design, since
they included "secondary" as well as
"primary" signals. However, in two
recent more simple studies to be
reported in more detail in the next
section, shocks signalled at from -5
to 1-0 sec. could be compared to
shocks signalled at longer intervals
at 35 and 5 sec. Despite the interesting arguments and the evidence
of Suboski et al. (1972), shortening
the signal-shock interval in our
studies did not produce a reliable IC
phenomenon.
In the continuing search for the
IC phenomenon, it was suggested
that IC might be more likely to
occur with loud noise rather than
shock at the noxious event. The
reason for this supposition was the
known fact that the middle-ear reflex
attenuates noise intensity (Fletcher,
1962), so that a conditioned form
of this reflex could act as a signalelicited IC preparatory-response
mechanism. The study which reports
relevant data from the largest sample
o f (5 6 ) 5 s i s t ha t b y F ured y,
Fainstat, Kulin, Lasko and Nichols
(1972), where, despite that fact
that there was significant preference
for signalled over unsignalled noise,
the former was not rated as less intense than the latter. Another more
recent study, which has been reported only in conference form
(Furedy & Klajner, 1972c), involved
presenting both shocks (1-5 to 2-5
mA) and noises (80 to 120 dB) to
the same 5s. This experiment will be
detailed in the next section, but it
is relevant here to note the middle
panels of Fig. 2 which show the
mean rated unpleasantness over 40
5s of the various noxious inescapable
events. The notion that IC will
emerge more clearly with noise than
with shock implies an interaction
between type of event (shock vs.
noise) and signalling (signalled vs.
unsignalled), with signalling reducing
rated unpleasantness more in the
case of the noises than the shocks.
However, as suggested by inspection
of the middle panel of Fig. 2 and as
confirmed by statistics, no such interaction occurred.
Nevertheless, if one favours a
An lntegrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
safety-signal interpretation (e.g.,
Seligman, 1968) over preparatoryresponse theory (Perkins, 1968), it
can be argued that in most of its
studies the Toronto laboratory has
sought the phenomenon with the
wrong sort of design. Specifically, in
studies like those summarized by
Furedy & Doob (1972), signalled
and unsignalled shocks were presented in a mixed manner, so that
the absence of the signal did not
predict the absence of shock. However, from a safety-signal point of
view, such predictability from signal
absence is essential for the benefits
of signalling to emerge. These benefits are hypothesized to emerge only
in situations where there are separate
periods of signalled shock and
periods of unsignalled shocks. Then,
according to the interpretation, S
spends less time in a state of chronic
anxiety or fear during signalled than
during unsignalled periods, since, in
the former case, whenever the signal
is absent (which is most of the time),
he can predict that shock will be
absent. Two direct implications of
the safety-signal interpretation for
such separate designs are that the
intervals between shocks are less
aversive under signalled than unsignalled conditions, and that any total
signalled-shock period itself is less
aversive than any total unsignalledshock period. An indirect implication, for which it is necessary only
to make the plausible assumption
that general anxiety augments the
aversiveness of any noxious stimulus,
is the emergence of the IC phenomenon, i.e., that the signalled shocks
themselves be rated as less aversive
than the unsignalled shocks. Tests
of this indirect implication seem to
have been provided by the experiments of Furedy & Klajner (1972a)
67
and Furedy & Ginsberg (1973),
since, in those studies, the signalled
and unsignalled shocks were not
mixed, but were presented in sequences or periods of five of either
signalled or unsignalled shocks.
Nevertheless, the fact that no IC
phenomenon emerged that could be
attributed to the complexity of these
studies and/or to the relative brevity
of the separate signalled and unsignalled periods.
Accordingly, an experiment was
designed with A. N. Doob to bear
more directly on the safety-signal
interpretation. Unlike the previous
studies in the Toronto laboratory,
this experiment had only one purpose, so that no autonomic measures
were taken and no unpaired CSs
(CS-) were provided, since no
conditioning was to be assessed. To
check on the sensitivity of the
aversiveness ratings, shock intensity
was varied within 5s over two (subjectively determined) levels: low
("slightly unpleasant") and high
("slightly painful"). The other twolevel factor was whether the shock
was or was not predictable by a 5sec. light as signal. All 60 5s received four sequences of 10 shocks
in a randomly predetermined order
To accentuate the information value
of the signal, the inter-shock intervals
varied randomly between 10. 15, 20,
25. 30. and 35 sec, so that, without
the signal, the time of occurrence of
the next shock was almost totally
unpredictable, and in terms of the
safety-signal
interpretation,
these
unsignalled periods contained almost
no "safe time". On the other hand,
in any period during which the
shocks were signalled, at least 180
sec. of the total 230-sec. period was
"safe", since the ten signals were
present for only a total of 50 sec.
68
John J. Furedy
Moreover, since the shock followed
the signal always at 5 sec, the
amount of "safe time" could exceed
180 sec. to approach the total 230sec. period, depending on the accuracy with which S could perceive
the temporal relationship between
signal and shock onsets. After each
sequence of 10 shocks, 5s were asked
to indicate, on a 150 mm line, the
"unpleasantness" of the shocks themselves, of the intervals between the
shocks, and the total period during
which the shocks had been presented. As noted earlier, the first
rating is relevant for an indirect
implication of the safety-signal interpretation, whereas the other two
ratings relate to what seem directly
derivable from the interpretation.
The results of these mean ratings
are summarised in Fig. 1. As suggested by the inspection of the
trends, analyses of variance indicated
that all three ratings were sensitive
to the shock-intensity manipulation,
p < 001; F ( l , 59) - 66-6, 19-4,
and 46-2 respectively, for the shocks
intervals, and period unpleasantness
ratings. However, the signalled-unsignalled difference failed to approach significance in any of the
measures: F ( l , 59) == 1-61, 0-23,
and 0-43 for the same three sorts of
ratings. The only other significant
effect was a signalling X intensity
interaction in the case of the shockunpleasantness ratings, F ( l , 59) =
5-09, p < 05, the nature of which
is indicated in the panel of Fig. 1:
a greater intensity effect with the
signalled than with the unsignalled
shocks. However, presumably because of the relatively high sensitivity
of such ratings, intensity X signalling
interactions of this sort have quite
frequently appeared in Toronto
studies where intensity was varied
Fig. 1. Mean unpleasantness ratings of 60 5s of shocks, intervals between shocks, and
total period of presentation of the 10 shocks as a function of whether or not the
shocks were signalled (as abscissal points) and intensity of shocks ( a s parameter).
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
within 5s (Furedy, 1970; Furedy &
Doob, 1971b; Furedy et al., 1973).
The nature of such interactions is
not replicated across experiments, so
that, although statistically significant,
the interactions are best considered
to be psychologically uninterpretable.
In any case, the present marginally
significant intensity X signalling
interaction clearly offers no more
support for the IC phenomenon than
do the other aspects of the data
depicted in Fig. 1. So, in an apparently adequately large sample of
(60) Ss, where clearly separate
periods of signalled and unsignalled
shocks were provided, and where
ratings of the unpleasantness of
various aspects of the situation were
obtained, the IC phenomenon still
failed to emerge.
The PFS Phenomenon
As with the evidence relevant to
IC, the evidence concerning preference for signalling (PFS) that
emerged up to late 1971 has been
summarised previously (Furedy &
Doob, 1972) to indicate that when
the data from over 160 Ss are
examined, there is no evidence whatsoever for any reliable group preference for signalled shock. The only
way that a PFS result can be squeezed
out of the data is—as noted in the
paper (Furedy & Doob, 1972, p.
112)—to arbitrarily restrict attention
to the first third of the first preference experiment (Exp. Ha), and, on
the basis of "predicting" a PFS
result, use a one-tailed test. Then,
PFS phenomenon does emerge at
p < 05. The reason for emphasizing
this example is to raise the question
of the degree to which the general
belief in the PFS phenomenon is
the result of investigators reporting
only preference experiments which
69
'"work", and not reporting (or not
being allowed to report) those with socalled "negative", i.e., no-preference,
outcomes.
Because
accurate
unreported data estimation is impossible, this question can only be
raised, not answered.
After the first signalling study
(Furedy, 1970) 5s were always
asked for their preferences following
any experiment directed towards
investigating the IC phenomenon.
Hence, the experiments which followed those summarized by Furedy
& Doob (1972), and which dealt
with various facets of the IC
phenomenon, also provided information on PFS under a variety of
conditions. Briefly, the data from
three experiments based on a total
of 96 5s (Furedy et al., 1973, Table
I) indicated no PFS whether or not
5s were distracted from the shocks.
Then, the two 48-Ss experiments of
Furedy & Klajner (1972a) and
Furedy & Ginsberg (1973) indicated
no reliable PFS under conditions
where the signal-shock interval was
the short, -5-sec. considered to be
optimal for obtaining both IC and
PFS by many investigators (e.g.,
Suboski et al, 1972). Finally, in the
Doob-Furedy experiment detailed in
the previous section, which was primarily designed to consider the
safety-signal interpretation (Seligman, 1968) in a more direct and
simple manner than in the case of
previous Toronto experiments, all 60
5s indicated preference for signalling
separately for the strong and the
weak shocks. For strong shock, the
obtained frequencies for signalled
preference, unsignalled preference,
and no preference were, respectively,
27, 25, and 8; for the weak shock,
the corresponding frequencies were
12. 20, and 28. These results, which
70
John J. Furedy
suggest that preference may be a
function of shock intensity, hint at
outcomes which emerged more clearly in experiments to be described
below, but it is already obvious that
the notion of a general PFS phenomenon failed to receive support even
though safety periods were clearly
provided.
It will probably have been noted
that so far the evidence presented
has almost uniformly been of the socalled "negative" variety. In the case
of the evidence relevant to the IC
mechanism and the IC phenomenon,
this characteristic of the evidence
has not posed a serious problem of
interpretation
because
the
dependent variables (aversiveness
ratings and signal-elicited autonomic
CRs) involved repeated measures
which, in most cases, could be shown
to be relatively sensitive to known
stimulus differences. On the other
hand, the preference measures were
clearly less sensitive, if only because
they were taken only once, and that
after the experiment had been
terminated. Moreover, validation or
sensitivity checks are impossible with
these preference measures. Accordingly it is a source of continuing
surprise that it was these relatively
unreliable and unvalidated preference measures which, a few years
ago, began. to yield the so-called
"positive" results that seem more
welcome in the pages of most psychological journals.
The first of these reliable group
preference phenomena to emerge
was in a 56-Ss experiment with loud
noise as the noxious event (Furedy
et al, 1972). In this study, although
16 5s expressed no preference, the
remainder were split 28 to 12 in
terms of preference, which is a
reliable PFS outcome at p < -02.
This PFS effect occurred in the
absence of any IC, but it was of
interest that the effect appeared
highly reliable, and that an even
more reliable PFS phenomenon had
recently been obtained with a rewarding but unmodifiable event
(Furedy & Klajner, 1972b). It
looked as if the PFS phenomenon
would emerge as the signalled event
moved from the unpleasant towards
the pleasant end of the hedonic
dimension. A testable consequence
of this possibility was that the loud
noises used in the Furedy et al.
(1972) study were less aversive than
the shocks that were used in the
previous Toronto studies which had
all failed to yield a reliable PFS
phenomenon. To test this hypothesis,
both shocks and noises were presented to the same 5s, and, by
obtaining aversiveness (stated in
terms of "unpleasantness") ratings
of both sorts of stimuli, their relative
aversiveness were compared. In addition, to validate the ratings measure (as, e.g., in Furedy, 1970),
physical intensity of both shocks 'and
noises was varied within 5s over
three levels: -5. 1-5, and 2-5 mA. for
shocks, and 80, 100, and 120 dB
for noise. It should be noted that
the high and low intensity levels
used correspond to those used in the
previous shock studies and the previous noise study. Almost as an
afterthought, it was decided to obtain
information not only on PFS in
general, but also separately for each
sort of event. Accordingly, at the
end of the experiment each 5 had
to fill out for this a sheet indicating
his preference for signalling concerning each of the six sorts of events
(type X intensity).
The relevant results for the 40 5s
of this experiment are summarized in
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
Fig. 2. Since the noises were rated
as significantly more unpleasant than
the shocks, p < 001, and this difference was maintained over all
three levels of physical intensity, the
71
data are contrary to our original
hypothesis that the noise was less
aversive than the shock. However,
of greater interest than our erroneous
belief about the relative aversiveness
COEFFICIENTS OF REGRESSION OF RATED UNPLEASANTNESS ON
ANTICIPATORY GSR
FIG. 2. Data relevant to the PFS phenomenon (top panels), the IC phenomenon (middle
panels), and the electrodermal IC preparatory-response mechanism (lower panel).
72
John J. Furedy
of shocks and noises are the preference data depicted in the top panels
of Figure 2. Note first that in terms
of an overall preference for signalling
(i.e., the SP vs. USP frequencies in
the graph), the customary Toronto
no-difference outcome has emerged
again. However, when the data are
separated into the hi, medium and lo
categories, it is clear (and is readily
supportable by statistical analyses)
that there was a PFS phenomenon
with the hi-intensity noises and
shocks, no preference with the
medium intensity events, and a
preference for unsignalled ("USP" in
the panel) lo-intensity events. The
intensity variable also clearly affected the frequency of no-preference
replies, there being an inverse
relationship between intensity and
"indifference". But the outcome of
greatest interest was that preference
was clearly a function of intensity,
a result which would never have
emerged had the preference data
been not separated for the different
sorts of events.
On the other hand, as the middle
panels of Fig. 2 indicate, the aversiveness ratings did not yield any
sign of a corresponding interaction
between signalling and intensity, although, as in all previous studies
where intensity was varied within 5s
(e.g. Furedy, 1970), the ratings
were highly sensitive to the intensity
manipulation itself. Nor was there
any evidence of the operation of
any electrodermal IC preparatoryresponse mechanism, since the distribution of regression coefficients
depicted in the bottom panel of Fig.
2 was not significantly negative.
The preference, verbal-ratings,
and autonomic (GSR) data summarized in Fig. 2 suggest an interpretation which is stated in the
second part of the title of the conference paper presented by Furedy
& Klajner (1972c). The interpretation assumes that the 5s believe
both that signal-elicited preparation
reduces aversiveness (i.e., a form
of the preparatory-response theory),
and that this preparation takes some
effort. Accordingly, they prefer signalling if the events are of high
aversiveness, but actually prefer to
have no signals if the events are of
low aversiveness (in which case,
presumably, the effort is not "worth
it"). Yet, as the title of the conference paper (Furedy & Klajner,
1972c) concludes, these beliefs of
the subjects are at least partly false,
as indicated by their own aversiveness ratings, which indicate no reduction of aversiveness as a function
of signalling. In addition, this interpretation, together with the fact that
the noises appeared to be reliably
more aversive than the shocks, also
explains why the PFS phenomenon
emerged reliably in the Furedy et al.
(1972), even though, as in the
present study, signalling did not
actually reduce perceived noxiousness. Moreover, before dismissing
this "beliefs" interpretation, the
reader should take up the challenge
which no one so far has successfully
met: consider the data summarized
in Fig. 2 and offer an alternative and
plausible interpretation to the "beliefs" interpretation presented here.*
* An interpretation which comes close
to meeting the challenge successfully is
R. A. Champion's suggestion that the data
can be more simply explained by the more
familiar and less "cognitive" assumption
that organisms act to reduce the total
fear in a situation, where fear is defined
as heightened activation attributable to a
noxious stimulus. Then, assuming that the
weaker shocks and noises were not
noxious, organisms following the total-fearreduction law would prefer to receive
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
In doing so, it should also be remembered that the preference pattern
that emerged was obtained from
what is, on the face of it, a most
insensitive measure: once-only measurement taken after the end of the
experiment.
Moreover, there is another set of
analogous PFS outcomes which have
recently emerged from two 24-Ss
experiments which varied the signalshock interval within 5s in order to
check on both the conditioned-fear
interpretation (cf., e.g., Furedy &
Doob, 1971, p. 263),and on Suboski
et o/.'s (1972) findings and notions.
From these points of view though
for different reasons, it could be
predicted that signalling would be
more beneficial at short signal-shock
intervals of the order of 1 sec. or
less, rather than at the 5- or 8-sec.
intervals used in most of the Toronto
studies. Both experiments involved
within-Ss designs where 5s rated the
intensity of short-signalled (signalshock intervals of -5, -75, and 10
sec.) and long-signalled (3-5 and
50 sec. signal-shock intervals), and
unsignalled shocks. Preference was
gathered in the usual way at the end
of both experiments, with 5s being
asked for their preferences with respect to both short and long signalling, and the top half of Table 1
shows the relevant results. In both
signals before strong shocks and noises
(so as to have to be in a state of fear
only for the duration of the signal), but
would prefer not to receive signals before
weak (non-noxious) shocks and noises,
since those stimuli do not elicit any fear
as defined here. However, the total-fear
interpretation has difficulty in accounting
for the preference patterns obtained in
the varied signal-shock interval experiments described in the text below, in
particular, for why short signals should
not be as much preferred as the mediumduration signals.
73
experiments, preference was clearly
a function of signal duration, and
the PFS phenomenon emerged only
with the short signals, so that it is
at least difficult to account for this
in simple information-preference
(Berlyne, 1960) terms. Rather, in a
way analogous to the previous study
(Furedy & Klajner, 1972c), it seems
reasonable to assume that 5s apparently believed that short, but not
long, signals reduced shock aversive
ness. The reasons for this belief, u.
course, can be many. For example,
perhaps 5s believed in the IC
phenomenon in the case of short
signals because they felt that they
could "time" their preparatory responses better than with the long
signals; or, perhaps they felt that
in the case of the longer signal, the
motivating effects of signal-elicited
fear (e.g., Furedy & Doob, 1971a,
p. 263) would counteract the beneficial effect of signalling, but that,
with the shorter signal, these fear
effects (i.e., "tensing up") would not
operate. Whatever the reasons for
the belief, however, the intensity
ratings, as those in the previous
study (Furedy & Klajner, 1972c)
suggested that the belief itself was
false. Thus the IC phenomenon, as
shown in the bottom half of Table 1,
was not significantly affected by
signal duration. Specifically, a twoway analysis of variance with signal
duration and experiments as factors
performed on the IC scores—the
means of which are presented in the
table—failed to yield any significant
effects. Nor did the mean of the IC
scores differ significantly from zero,
indicating that, here again, no real
IC phenomenon had really emerged.
Nevertheless, the preference results
in Table 1 are both clear, and suggest
that 5s believe both what
74
John J. Furedy
TABLE 1 Preference and
Ratings Results
1A : Preference Frequencies as a Function of Signal Duration in
Exps. I {N = 24) and II (N = 24)
Prefer signalled
Prefer unsignalled
No preference
Exp.
1
16
3
5
Signal Exp.
II
14
3
7
Long
Exp.
I
5
11
8
Signal Exp.
II
6
Short
II
7
IB : Mean ICC Scores' as a Function of
Signal Duration in Exps
Short Signal
Exp.
I
30
Exp.
II
1-2
Long
1 and II
Signal
40
—2-6
' Defined as the algebraic difference between rated intensity ( i n 7c full scale) of
unsignalled and of signalled shocks, so that the larger the algebraic value of the score,
the greater the IC phenomenon.
Doob and I (Furedy & Doob, 1971a,
p. 263) and Suboski et al. (1972)
had predicted, though for different
reasons: that the IC phenomenon
would emerge more clearly if short
signals were used. Apparently, then,
5s believe what Es predict (as indicated by the formers' preference
results) but 5s' faith in Es' predictions concerning IC, is, to judge
from 5s' ratings results, sadly misguided. Yet a reliable and replicable
PFS phenomenon at last has been
found in the Toronto laboratory.
However, the phenomenon clearly
has puzzling characteristics, and is
equally clearly difficult to reconcile
with any current theories. Nor does
it offer any support for notions like
IC, "negative perception" (Lykken,
1962), "preparatory response" (Perkins, 1968), "safety signal" (Seligman, 1968), optimal conditioning
intervals (Suboski et al., 1972), or
conditioned fear (Furedy & Doob,
1971a). All that the PFS phenom-
enon found at Toronto may do is
to provide the means by which the
strength of beliefs in notions like IC
can be explained.
METHODOLOGICAL
CLAIMS
Even if much of the evidence
reviewed here turns out to be unsound, it is at least clear that the
effects of signalling form an exceedingly complex empirical pattern.
This complexity, together with some
methodological criticisms that have
been made of the Toronto studies,
have led to the formulation of some
methodological claims which, though
arising from a rather narrow problem in experimental psychology, are
also of more general interest.
The Importance of a RatedA aversiveness Methodology
The rated-aversiveness methodology (cf., e.g., Furedy et al, 1973)
makes use of psychophysical or
introspective data in the form of
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
verbal ratings of the aversiveness of
signalled and unsignalled noxious
unmodifiable events. Whether this
method is described as "psychophysical" or "introspective", the
claim is that it is important to
measure perceived aversiveness as
directly as possible if we want to
find out about those effects of
signalling with which this paper is
concerned.
In particular, for testing the sort
of IC preparatory-response mechanism discussed here, it seems clear
that ratings of perceived noxiousness
need to be obtained. Simply because
a signal-elicited GSR happens to be
in an anticipatory relationship with
respect to a shock that follows the
signal, it seems very dubious practice to assume that this response
actually reduces the perceived
noxiousness of that event without
having some measure of how aversively that event is perceived by the
S. By all means, measure the various
"objective" anticipatory responses
that are elicited by the signal, but
measure also the "subjective" aversiveness of the following event, even
if that measurement involves what
some may call misguided introspection.
However, even for testing for the
presence of the IC phenomenon
itself, it seems almost crucial to
employ some form of the ratedaversiveness methodology. If there is
one thing that the Toronto evidence
has established quite clearly, it is the
inadvisability of inferring perceived
aversiveness conclusions from premises based on preference data. Indeed, even without that evidence, it
is clear that preference-based inferences are unwise in this context;
for example, a theory like Berlyne's
(1960) predicts the PFS phenom-
75
enon, but not the IC phenomenon.
There are some situations where one
can substitute objective for introspective data, but the case of signalling is not one of them.
This is not to say that a given
form of the rated-aversiveness
methodology (for example, the magnitude-estimation based intensity
ratings procedure) used at Toronto
should be accepted without question.
It is possible, for example, that
verbal indices of shock intensity are
invalid measures of aversiveness because they reflect merely "objective
intensity" rather than "subjective intensity" (Lykken et al., 1972, p.
332). It has been indicated elsewhere (Furedy & Klajner, 1974, p.
123) that this question of validity is
certainly worth raising. However, if
a number of measures (rated intensity, rated unpleasantness, rated
aversiveness, and related scales of
the semantic-differential of Osgood
et al.) all point in the same direction
(i.e., no IC phenomenon), then it
seems more plausible to suggest that
all these verbal ratings are valid
measures of "subjective intensity",
i.e., aversiveness, rather than to dismiss verbal ratings as invalid indices
of perceived aversiveness. Again, it
is at least logically possible that, as
Obrist et al. (1969) supposed, the
whole repeated rated aversiveness
methodology is unsuitable for this
particular issue because prior instructions to rate aversiveness produce "heightened attention toward
the UCS", and this attention blocks
the normal IC preparatory-response
mechanism. But if investigations
(e.g. Furedy et al., 1973) of this
possibility fail to support it, then it
is the possibility rather than the ratedaversiveness methodology that should
be rejected. The general
76
John J. Furedy
point from all this, of course, is that
critical (validated) introspective data
is not only permissable, but necessary for a proper investigation of the
effects of signalling on noxious unmodifiable events.
Autonomic Measures of Perceived
Aversiveness
Because of the "subjective" nature
of verbal or introspective reports,
the use of autonomic measures of
the relative aversiveness of signalled
and unsignalled shocks seems to be
at least an attractive supplement to
the rated-aversiveness methodology.
However, the increase in "objectivity" which such autonomic measures bring is also accompanied by
other complexities. In particular, the
most obvious autonomic index, which
is based on the magnitude of the
response elicited by the signalled and
unsignalled events (e.g., shocks) may
seem attractive (e.g., Lanzetta &
Driscoll, 1966), but, as first indicated a few years ago (Furedy.
1970, p. 306), such shock-elicited
indices, in this context, are confounded by a response-interference
factor. The gravity of this confounding is currently a matter of debate
between the Toronto and Minnesota
laboratories (cf., Furedy & Klajner,
1974; Lykken & Tellegen, 1974),
but it would be admitted by both
parties to this dispute that the use
of shock-elicited autonomic indices
in the signalling situation does have
some knotty, if not insoluble, problems associated with it.
Because of our own view that the
response-interference problem is, in
fact, an insoluble problem, we have
developed an autonomic index which
is based on secondary signals which
themselves indicate whether or not
a consequent series of shocks will
or will not be signalled (Furedy &
Klajner, 1972a; Furedy & Ginsberg,
1973). The experimental arrangements and arguments for this "unconfounded" index which is not
based on shock-elicited responding
have been detailed elsewhere
(Furedy & Klajner, 1972a ), but
one undesirable feature of the
arrangements is that they are quite
complex. Accordingly, validation of
the index (e.g., by demonstrating its
sensitivity to physical shock intensity
differences) is not invariably successful, in which cases the index becomes
no more than an interesting exercise
in logic, but is useless for adequately
assessing the effects of signalling.
Perhaps because of this difficulty,
only the electrodermal form of the
index has been useful, and even with
that response, unconventional but
apparently more sensitive methods
of measuring the response itself have
had to be employed in order to
meet the validation requirement.
Specifically, it appears (Furedy,
1972; Furedy & Ginsberg, 1973)
that electrodermal recovery time
(ERT) in the form suggested by
Edelberg (1970) for quite different
experimental situations provides a
more sensitive index than does the
more conventional magnitude measure.5 It bears emphasis, however,
5 An earlier form of ERT is the
"recovery-quotient" (RQ) measure introduced by Freeman and Katzoff (1942)
and later shown by Champion (1950) to
be both more sensitive to threat than the
magnitude measure as well as being more
generally valid in the sense of being
independent of base conductance level.
The rationale of the ERT and RQ measures is the same, but while the former is
defined by the nature of the individual
response (i.e., time from response onset
to 50% response recovery), the latter is
defined in terms of a fixed time interval
(e.g.. recovery at 8 sec. following stimulus
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
that the sensitivity even of this
"supra sensitive" ERT autonomic
index is far lower than that of any
of the measures based on verbal or
introspective reports.
On Measuring Preference
Since people sometimes do exactly
the opposite of what they say they
would do in a given situation (e.g.,
Doob & Gross, 1968), it may seem
that the method of gathering data
relevant for the PFS phenomenon
by questionnaire methods is a
dangerous one. However, there arc
data (Furedy & Doob, 1972. Exp.
IV) to indicate that in the signalling
situation, behavioural (i.e., choice)
and questionnaire (i.e.. expressed
preference) results correspond, in
which case, from the point of view
of experimental economy, the
questionnaire method of measuring
preference is preferable. On the
other hand, it is crucial that the
method by which these questionnaire
data are gathered be as neutral as
possible, which requires such features as: (a) asking the questions
in written rather than verbal form
to minimise potentially confounding
interactions between 5 and E, and
(b) not using positively and negatively valenced words such as "information" and "no information at
onset) within which most of the recovery
of most response is assumed to occur. On
the face of it. therefore. ERT would seem
to yield a more precise index than RQ.
However. Champion's (1950) evidence
for the superiority of RQ over magnitude
in a threat situation is more fully documented statistically than Furedy's (1972)
evidence for RT superiority, since the
former also included evidence that RQ
in contrast to magnitude, was both independent of base conductance and did not
violate normality assumption. Direct comparison of ERT and RQ in the same
threat study is obviously called for.
77
all" (Lanzetta & Driscoll, 1966; cf.
also Furedy & Doob, 1972, p. 114)
to describe the signalled and unsignalled alternatives.
Of two other refinements that our
investigations have taught us, the
first is the advisability of providing
a no-preference alternative in order
to maximise the chances for obtaining differential results. The PFS
phenomenon, where it does exist, is
clearly not one which occurs in all
5s. If E forces all 5s to opt for either
the signalled or the unsignalled alternative, both these categories will
contain 5s who have made a quasirandom decision. By providing a
third no-preferencc category many
of these "error-contributing" 5s are
eliminated from the sample, making
it possible to find a significant preference even in situations where a sizable
proportion of the 5s is indifferent
(e.g., Furedy el al., 1972).
The second refinement is that
whenever the events differ along
some dimension (e.g., intensity,
signal-event interval), preference data
should always be obtained separate!)
for each type of event. It is this
separate mode of questioning that
has yielded the only reliable and
replicable pattern of results that, in
any sense, favours an IC interpretation. However, as has been argued
above, the degree of this support is
far too limited for any great enthusiasm for the IC and related
notions since the results seem only
to indicate the beliefs of the 5s in IC
notions rather than the facts about
signalling (as shown by the ratings
data). It is perhaps ironic, however,
that it was sophistication as regards
preference questions about different
events, rather than sophistication as
regards different verbal labels for
aversiveness, that has turned out to
John J. Furedy
78
produce meaningfully differential patterns of results.
CONCLUSIONS
The fact that the Toronto evidence
reviewed here is generally contrary to
human IC notions raises the obvious
question of how this unfavourable
Toronto evidence is to be reconciled
with reports from other laboratories
which apparently support the beneficial effects of, and preference for,
signalling. In answer to this question,
previous papers have presented arguments and evidence to indicate that
the apparent confirmations of IC
notions: (a) have been statistically
equivocal (Kimmel, 1967; cf. Furedy, 1970, p. 306); (b) emerged to
support the IC phenomenon only
when the aversiveness ratings were
arbitrarily expressed as ratios of
first-trial ratings (Grings, 1969; cf.
Furedy et al., 1972, p. 109); (c)
may have been based on a design not
optimally arranged for determining
whether signalling was preferred
(Lanzetta & Driscoll, 1966; cf.
Fur ed y & Do ob, 1972 , p . 11 4);
(d) may have used confounded
autonomic indices of shock aversiveness (Lykken, 1962; cf. Furedy,
1970, p. 306; for further details of
this dispute, cf. Furedy & Klajner,
1974, Lykken et al., 1972 and Lykken & Tellegen, 1974). This mode
of integrating the current research
literature, however, is far from
adequate, a case in point being the
set of experiments reported by
Suboski et al. (1972) of which some
aspects both confirm IC notions and
do not appear to be subject to any
of the abovementioned criticisms.
Unfortunately there is no obvious
and correct way of identifying the
variables responsible for the discrepancy between the supportive results
of Suboski et al. (1972) and the
disconfirming results reviewed here.
Specifically, although both laboratories, though for different reasons,
have identified the signal-shock interval as the critical variable, (Suboski
et a l, 1 97 2, p. 4 0 8 ; Fured y &
Doob, 1971a, p. 263), the experiments reviewed (Furedy & Ginsberg, 1973; Furedy & Klajner,
1972) and reported (cf., e.g., Table
1) here did use short signal-shock
intervals, and yet failed to obtain
evidence for the IC phenomenon.
This sort of complexity in the
experimental results is one reason
why we are still far from a fully
integrative account which states the
conditions under which signalling has
beneficial, detrimental, and no effects,
respectively. The other obstacle in the
path of an ultimate integration is the
degree to which the current Zeitgeist
is biassed towards evidence favouring notions like IC. One example of
this bias was hinted at earlier in
connection with the mechanism of
IC, where it was noted that a recent
psychophysiological review of the
role of anticipatory signal-elicited
GSRs held these responses to be
preparatory adaptive or "protective"
(Dengerink & Taylor, 1971). What
needs stressing at this point, however, is that despite the earlier experimentally based "caution against
attributing to the classically conditioned GSR instrumental properties
that it apparently does not possess"
(Furedy, 1970, p. 306), the "protective" status was ascribed by
Dengerink & Taylor to the GSR on
the basis of no relevant evidence
(i.e., no attempt to measure the
aversiveness of the event against
which the GSR is supposed to
"protect") other than the fact that
An Integrative Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
the post-signal-onset GSR in question
did anticipate the noxious event.
Another example of the bias
arises in connection with the IC
phenomenon itself when the abstract
of a more recent paper refers to
"previous findings that signalled
shock is less aversive than unsignalled shock", and states that the
results reported "extend the generality of this phenomenon from choice
measures to rate measures of aversiveness" (Macdonald & Baron.
1973, p. 33). However, it must be
noted that this quote is taken from
a paper concerned mainly with
animal data, whereas the present
paper, as indicated at the outset, is
restricted to findings based on human
5s.
No such qualification is available
to weaken the third example of bias
where a recent paper reporting
human data reviewed the preference
literature by claiming a "number of
studies" to show that "humans (e.g.
Badia, Suter & Lewis, 1967) consistently select signalled over unsignalled shock in a choice situation",
and referred to "the pronounced
preference shown by 5s for signalled
shock" (Suboski et al., 1972, p. 407).
One aspect of the bias is revealed
by an inspection of the abstract of
the Badia et al. (1967) paper which
indicates, as does the text, that no
preference was obtained when the
signal was always followed by the
shock, but only when the signal was
followed by the shock 25% of the
time. This study, then, is hardly an
adequate example reference to support the claim that "humans consistently select" (Suboski et al.,
1972, p. 407) signalled shock. Also,
the journal containing Suboski et al.'s
paper had previously published two
reports which, based on a total of
79
160 5s run under a variety of conditions, reported no consistent evidence for any general PFS effect
(Furedy & Doob, 1971a, p. 262;
1971b, p. 405). Moreover, this
aspect of the bias inherent in writing
of a "pronounced preference"' becomes more startling when it is
recognised that Suboski et al. (1972)
not only cited the two reports from
the Toronto laboratory in their list
of references (Suboski et al., 1972,
p. 4 1 5 ), but also referred repeatedly
to these papers in the text (Suboski
et al, 1972, p. 407, p. 414, p. 415)
both to indicate that signalling did
not always reduce aversiveness ("in
contrast to the pronounced preference . . ."), and to formulate some
detailed criticisms of the general
methodology used in the Toronto
studies for testing the preparatoryresponse IC mechanism issue (for a
rejoinder to these criticisms, c.f.,
Furedy, 1973, p. 282). Finally, it
will be noted that this characterisation of the evidence relevant to the
PFS as indicating a "pronounced
preference" shown "consistently" by
human 5s occurred in a journal
which, because of the recognised
general rigour of its editorial standards, has often been described as
"archival". This example, then, appears to provide an extremely telling
illustration of the strength of the
Zeitgeist in holding to the generality
of the PFS phenomenon on the basis
of demonstrably inadequate evidence.
The final illustration of the
strength of this Zeitgeist comes from
D'Amato's (1974) review of the
recent evidence in a section headed
"Preference for Signaled Reinforcement". In this Annual Review of
Psychology paper, the following assertions are made (all quotes from
80
John J. Furedy
D'Amato, 1974, p. 9 3 ) : "There are
a large number of studies . . . which
clearly show that animals and
humans very generally prefer signaled to unsignaled reinforcement";
"Taken as a whole, these experiments, particularly those dealing
with aversive [my emphasis] stimulation, seem to offer striking support
for the information hypothesis";
"The greater aversiveness of unsignaled over signaled shock has also
been verified using a response rate
measure"; "The magnitude of the
difference in aversiveness of the two
types of shock is indicated by the
fact that in one study rats chose
signaled shock . . . 2 to 3 times more
intense than unsignaled shock". In
the terminology of the present paper,
then, the impression clearly is that
over the last five years there has been
overwhelming evidence not only for
the PFS, but also for the IC, phenomenon.8
D'Amato's review, while failing to
cite any of the eleven articles reported by the Toronto laboratory in
journals from 1970 to 1973 (papers
which all dealt with aversive stimulation—see references for list—and
which all yielded results which were
far from offering any "striking support" for either the IC or the PFS
notions) does cite the only report
6 In fairness it should be added first
that on the following page D'Amato
(1973, p. 94) indicates that the support
offered for the "information hypothesis"
is not so "striking" as it may seem. Moreover, the section on the "preference for
signaled reinforcement" involves only
two pages in a paper whose central concern is the more general issue of derived
motives. Nevertheless, it is clear that on
the more specific question of the effects
of signalling noxious, unmodifiable outcomes, D'Amato's review gives unequivocal endorsement to both the PFS
and IC phenomena.
from the Toronto laboratory that
reported both a preference for signalling and nothing contrary to the
IC notion (Furedy & Klajner,
1972b). That this study involved
rewarding rather than aversive outcomes is indicated in D'Amato's
review, but he fails to note that even
the title of that paper emphasised the
importance of the hedonic value of
the signalled event as regards the
generality of the PFS phenomenon
by referring to a "preference for
information about an unmodifiable
but [my emphasis] rewarding outcome". Moreover, the abstract of
this paper concluded by stating that
"The contrast between these clear
signalled-preference results, and previous difficulties in obtaining reliable
preference for signalled unmodifiable
noxious (shock) outcomes is discussed" (Furedy & Klajner, 1972b,
p. 469); the introduction (Furedy &
Klajner, 1972b, p. 469) devoted
some space to noting this "contrast";
and the discussion offered an explanation for it (Furedy & Klajner,
1972b, p. 471).
It is also worth noting that the
Toronto laboratory has not been
alone in reporting results unfavourable to the IC notion. The abstract
of a paper not cited by D'Amato
but published recently in a wellknown journal stated that "One unexpected and unexplained finding of
this study was that 7 out of 8 5s
rated shocks as more painful when
the UCS was certain than when it
was uncertain" (Bowers, 1971, p.
382). These results, moreover, like
those reported by Furedy & Doob
(1971a, 1971b) in connection with
the IC phenomenon, cannot even be
dismissed for yielding merely socalled "negative" outcomes, since
in these experiments the signalled
An Integrativc Progress Report on Informational Control in Humans
shocks were rated as significantly
more aversive than the unsignalled
shocks. There is little doubt that we
are far from the goal of adequately
integrating the evidence on human
informational control. An Annual
Review of Psychology article that is
as selective as the D'Amato review
would seem to delay reaching that
goal.
At the outset it was indicated that
the facts about the effects of signalling are important both for the
development of basic psychological
theory as well as for such applications
as the alleviation of pain and fear in
medical contexts. Even if the more
demonstrational and "parsimonious"'
approach of simply believing in such
Copernician "convenient fictions" as
the general PFS phenomenon was
initially useful for "organising our
ideas", it is clear that the stage has
been reached where it is necessary to
strive for an investigative rather than
demonstrational approach. Experiments need to be used not in a
Copernican way to illustrate currently "useful" schemata about the
beneficial effects of signalling, but in
the Galilean mode to determine
whether, in fact, those beneficial
effects are really present or whether,
indeed, the effects are actually detrimental. It is only by adopting this
tactic, only by being concerned, that
is, by what is the case rather than
with what is "useful" or "fruitful",
that we shall reach the goal of stating
the conditions under which signalling
has beneficial, detrimental and no
effects. The exposure of strong
biases in favour of the beneficial
effects of signalling, the presentation
of laboratory evidence which runs
contrary to IC notions, and the stating of methodological claims which
are relevant to investigations of IC
81
in humans, are all necessary, but
merely initial, steps towards this
goal. It is because these steps are
merely preliminary that the integration offered by the present progress report on the problem of
signalling can only be the serving of
notice that informational control in
humans can no longer be regarded as
a phenomenon to be demonstrated,
but must be seen as a phenomenon
to be investigated under conditions
which, as yet, remain to be specified.
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